Providence Canyon State Park preserves a network of massive erosion gullies allegedly caused by poor farming practices during the nineteenth century. Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies uses the unlikely story of Providence Canyon - and the 1930s contest over its origins and meaning - to recount the larger history of dramatic human-induced soil erosion across the US south.

PAUL S. SUTTER is an associate professor of history at University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement.